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STUTTGART, Germany and BEIJING — During its first-ever company event for investors and analysts in Beijing late last week, Daimler AG proclaimed strong projections for sustainable profits from operating activities at Mercedes-Benz Cars.

Looking toward the rest of this year and beyond, Dieter Zetsche explained how China would be a key growth market for unit sales, revenue and earnings. The chairman of the board of management at Daimler and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars made these statements in light of recovering global economic conditions.

"From today's perspective, assuming there is no further downturn of the world economy, we expect Mercedes-Benz Cars to achieve its targeted return on sales of 10 percent in the second half of 2012 and to maintain it as of full-year 2013," Zetsche declared.

The automaker's top executive also elaborated about positive business development as the result of several factors. Zetsche highlighted the sustainable progress made with the "Gofor10" efficiency program, the strong product portfolio and the good momentum of the brand. He also noted that Daimler did its "strategic homework" during the recent financial and economic crisis, leaving the company with a sound foundation for future success.

Zetsche based his assertions on how the OEM is performing during the second quarter of this year.

"From today's perspective, we expect Mercedes-Benz Cars' EBIT in the second quarter of this year to be higher than in the first quarter," he indicated, while mentioning the EBIT for the first quarter amounted to 806 million euros.

The automaker also pointed out that it sold 12 percent more vehicles this past April than the same month last year, with indications for strong performances on tap for May and June, as well.

Mercedes-Benz believes there are several significant sales advantages that come during the second quarter. The company listed better pricing, an enhanced product mix and optimized cost structure.

Therefore, executives contend the return on sales in the second quarter of this year could be higher than the first quarter's 7 percent. Meanwhile, they also stated the company's second-quarter production output of well more than 300,000 vehicles will be close to the volumes achieved before the start of the financial and economic crisis.

Zetsche cautioned that the half-year results cannot be annualized for full-year 2010. He said the reason is because Mercedes-Benz plans to spend more on CO2-related research and development, resulting in more capital expenditure for new-vehicle models and a corresponding impact on earnings.

"Nonetheless, I can say that Mercedes-Benz Cars' EBIT for the year 2010 will be at the upper end of our forecast of euro 2.5 billion to euro 3 billion," Zetsche told the Beijing gathering.

Zetsche went on to emphasize that China is now the third-largest sales market for Mercedes-Benz after Germany and the United States. He anticipates sales in the Asian nation to top 100,000 in 2010 after the brand moved more than 67,000 vehicles in China last year.

Zetsche also noted that China is already the biggest market worldwide for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and R-Class model series.

"China is becoming more and more important to Daimler," he concluded.